Artist: Ebony EvansAlbum: Luv's FireCD Review:
I was there when disco started, hell I was there when Motown started. In the beginning each was fun and the artists ruled; you couldn’t help but move to their music. Then came their demise as a result of the producers taking over, letting the artists be mouthpieces for overwhelming arrangements and inane melodrama in the lyrics.

Ebony Evans is trying to do a Motown/disco/ R & B diva thing and it just doesn’t work. At all. Musically, it feels closed as opposed to the open sound I prefer in ‘70’s-style soul music. The production has a lot to do with this severe shortcoming. Simple lyrics abound, with rhymes forced and obvious. Sometimes the singing amounts to high-class whining, at other times it can touch the heart.

The title song starts off like a Donna Summer hit but gets little traction after a few hearings. The second track “Yes I Do” is barely listenable with its unsophisticated songwriting, lack of production discipline and overdubbing on the voice.

Next up is “Loving You is all I Want to Do” and I know most listeners will think they’ve heard it before. The beat, the instrumentation, everything. At least the lyrics offer some relief from the sameness that is evident throughout. The fourth track “You Happened to Me” also feels like a retread with no discernable creativity in play. “Push My Button” follows and is about as silly a waste of space on a CD as I can imagine.

The other 9 songs on the CD fall into the categories listed above. Emotionally, I got nothing from this album; the producers bear much of the responsibility for the failure of this freshman effort. Ebony has a voice that can be made into a powerhouse for ‘70’s-style tunes. Just get some good songwriters, open up the music and let Ebony rip.